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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29908809">a wing and a prayer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish'>lazyfish</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Wings, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Polyamory</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:34:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,704</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29908809</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobbi's wings aren't the same after getting shot.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lance Hunter/Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie/Bobbi Morse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a wing and a prayer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time Bobbi returned to the nest, she didn’t look at either of them.</p><p>Her left wing was still crumpled against her back and she could barely pull herself out of her wheelchair and into the nest. Mack had built it for them when they’d first started courting, a lifetime ago. They hadn’t been able to find one big enough for three that suited their style, and of course Mack was good enough with his hands that it became a non-issue.</p><p>The nest had felt too big without all of them in it, though. Now it felt too small, like Bobbi was taking up space she didn’t deserve. Hunter and Mack had been spooning each other when she’d walked in, Hunter preening Mack’s wings, but they’d both looked up when she walked in and separated wordlessly.</p><p>Mack’s hands reached towards her when she clambered into the nest, like he was waiting for her to fall so he could catch her. Bobbi didn’t fall, just hissed slightly when her wing jostled against the rim of the bowl. Mack had designed the nest to be snug, the way they liked it, but with an injured wing and an even more injured body, snug wasn’t what Bobbi wanted.</p><p>It felt like there wasn’t enough room for the three of them at the nest’s flat bottom, where Mack and Hunter had been safely snuggled before. Hunter had already climbed up the side of the nest and was perched at the edge, his wings folded tight against his back. Bobbi sighed - the last thing she wanted was to add more tension into the situation. Things were already delicate enough with him learning to trust her and Mack again after their betrayal, and she never wanted him to think there wasn’t enough room for him.</p><p>“Come here,” Mack said, opening his arms to her. His wings drifted open, too, and Bobbi blinked back an unexpected haze of tears. Everyone knew Mack was handsome, but his wings were truly something to behold. It was wings like Mack’s that made people believe angels existed, because the white feathers dappled with cream and gold looked nothing short of divine. Bobbi half-crawled, half-dragged herself into the circle of his arms, not bothering to hide her wince when she tried to find a comfortable position to settle in against his chest. She ended up face down so her injured wing wouldn’t have to touch anything, though her weight was awkwardly shifted in an effort to keep pressure off her bad knee.</p><p>Without warning something soft slid under her knee, alleviating the worst of the awkwardness of the position. Bobbi felt Hunter rather than saw him, and wished she could use her wings properly. If she could she could’ve rustled her feathers to acknowledge what he had done. Instead she had to settle for shoving her face further into Mack’s chest and hoping Hunter could read her mind.</p><p>The light streaming in around her dimmed slightly, blocked out by Mack’s wings curving ahead overhead like a canopy. Mack was a large man, but his wings were large even for someone of his stature - he could split a room in two with his wingspan, and often made use of that ability.</p><p>“Can I touch?” Hunter murmured, breaking the silence settled around them like a blanket.</p><p>Bobbi stiffened. She knew without asking he was talking about her wings. “They’re a mess.” She had adamantly refused to let anyone in the hospital preen her; she only trusted her partners to touch her wings under the best of circumstances, and being at the hospital was not the best of circumstances. It had been weeks since she’d had a proper preening, and she knew her wings had suffered for it. Between that and not being able to stretch her left wing at all, they were certain to be ugly and unkempt.</p><p>“I’ll be gentle,” Hunter promised, voice still soft and soothing.</p><p>Bobbi considered. Why else had she come to their nest if not to have her mates comfort her? Hunter probably needed the reassurance she didn’t blame him for what had happened just as much as she needed the preening, and Mack was Mack, who spoke his love best through actions.</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>Hunter’s fingers began exploring her right wing carefully, sending soft whispers of contentment through Bobbi. She drooped against Mack when Hunter pulled out the first bit of stuck down, body trembling slightly. The itchiness of the stuck down and the embarrassment of looking like hell warmed over had been the least of her concerns recently, but the moment Hunter began to remedy the situation Bobbi was overwhelmed by how much better she was going to feel when it was all over with.</p><p>Mack churred softly, sliding his hand into the hole in her shirt her wing came out of and running his fingers along the soft skin there. Bobbi tried to make an answering noise, but it was lost somewhere in her chest when Mack began rubbing small circles into the joint of her wing and back with his thumb. Mack progressed to running his fingers through her scalpular feathers, plucking the loose ones away and straightening the rest so they didn’t cause her any irritation. Hunter was still hard at work pulling away clumps of down, and with each pass of his hand Bobbi grew more and more relaxed. Even the muscles of her injured wing, perpetually tensed and frozen into place, began to relax.</p><p>“What about this one?” Mack asked lowly.</p><p>“Hurts,” Bobbi mumbled back, already prepared for the pain that would come when Mack touched the injured wing.</p><p>There was no pain, though. His hands were gentle, as they always were, but firm in guiding her wing to a position slightly more open than it was before. It was uncomfortable, but the way stretching a cramped muscle was uncomfortable - not the sharp, stinging pain she came to associate with anything to do with her wing, shoulder, or knee.</p><p>Mack’s hands continued to run along her wing, warming up the stiff muscles slowly but surely. If Hunter knew what Mack was doing he didn’t acknowledge it; he was still preening her uninjured wing singlemindedly. Bobbi couldn’t imagine how many loose feathers he had pulled out, though she was sure she was going to see if she ever managed to extricate herself from Mack.</p><p>That didn’t seem likely, since with every pass of her mates’ hands Bobbi just sank deeper into Mack. She was utterly boneless, the attention and assurance of her mates beside her bringing a sort of ethereal calm she rarely felt.</p><p>The illusion was shattered when Hunter made a loud, distressed noise. His wings echoed him, a chorus of irritated feather rustling filling the air. </p><p>“There’s still some blood,” Mack explained hoarsely before Bobbi could ask.</p><p>Damn it.</p><p>“Lance, go get a towel,” Mack instructed, voice never wavering. The hand that he had been using to massage her wing into opening was now running down the back of Bobbi’s head, offering a grounding point amid her misery. Mack pressed a kiss to the top of her head and Bobbi stopped trying to hold back her sniffles. She hated this. She hated that she was tortured and she hated that she had bled and she hated that seeing it made her mates hurt even after all this time had passed.</p><p>Hunter’s wings were still shaking out a symphony when he climbed back into the nest, but Bobbi couldn’t find the right words to comfort him. Instead she sat as still as she could when he pressed a steaming hot towel against her injured wing, presumably wiping off the blood and dirt that had accumulated there when she’d been unable to unfold it. He moved in long, slow strokes, still somehow methodical despite how obviously upset he was.</p><p>“Can we be done now?” Bobbi asked when Hunter finished cleaning up the dried blood. She knew there was work still yet to do on her wings, but the calm of the moment had been shattered.</p><p>Neither of them answered, so Bobbi sat up slowly, folding her good wing against her body. She didn’t dare do anything with the bad one; even if Mack’s massaged had loosened in somewhat, she didn’t trust herself not to ruin the progress he’d made.</p><p>“Let me do you,” she said, reaching for Hunter. Mack’s wings were well cared for (Hunter had always been a bit obsessive when it came to preening Mack, because getting even a little bit behind on such massive wings meant hours of extra work) but Hunter’s had seen better days. Bobbi doubted it was from lack of trying on Mack’s part; it was more likely Hunter was just jumpy after everything that had happened and couldn’t sit still long enough to be properly preened. That, or he hadn’t trusted Mack to do it for a few weeks and had let himself get into worse shape than usual.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” Hunter rolled his shoulders forward, allowing Bobbi the best possible position to see his wings from. They were beautiful - unlike Bobbi’s they didn’t match the coloration of any bird found in nature, and unlike Mack’s they were far from monochromatic. Hunter’s wings were a kaleidoscope of colors, like someone had seen a dove through a stained glass window and decided to give those wings to someone whose personality was just as colorful. </p><p>“I don’t know why you’re apologizing for something that’s my fault,” Bobbi said crisply. If she had let the hospital orderlies preen her at least a little, there wouldn’t have been any blood for Mack and Hunter to find and they wouldn’t have needed to take a break.</p><p>“It’s neither of your faults,” Mack interrupted before she and Hunter could get pulled down that hole. “We’ll finish Bobbi’s later.”</p><p>He didn’t specify whether later meant later that night or at a later date, which Bobbi appreciated; <em>later</em> was flexible enough not to give her any anxiety.</p><p>Mack settled next to Bobbi instead of behind her, stretching one great wing out to drape around her like a cloak. The gentle pressure of his wing around her wasn’t enough to aggravate her shoulder, but served as a grounding point when Bobbi started to drift far into her own head. As much as she enjoyed being preened, being the one to do the preening was even better for Bobbi. She could be as meticulous as she wanted, linger as long as she wanted, and she didn’t need to offer any excuse for it. On the worst days of her and Hunter’s first marriage, preening him had been the only time she would allow herself to touch him like that, slow and careful and reverent. Bobbi tried not to think of the weeks leading up to the divorce when she ran her fingers through Hunter’s feathers. This was supposed to be a happier time - or at least sad for the right reasons.</p><p>“I missed this,” she whispered as she nudged one of Hunter’s primaries back into place.</p><p>“We’ve been waiting for you,” Mack answered lowly. “Hunter wouldn’t let me touch him until you were back.”</p><p>“Stop it, Mack, that makes me sound all noble and brooding.”</p><p>“You are brooding,” Bobbi teased, running her hand through his feathers for no other reason than to be touching him. There wasn’t any more loose down or awkwardly-angled pinions there - she had already checked.</p><p>“Am not.”</p><p>“Are so.”</p><p>“Are you my mates or my children?” Mack asked, shaking his head.</p><p>“Love, I need you to seriously consider whether that question is appropriate.” Hunter’s feathers had puffed up, and Bobbi pressed her lips together as she continued preening him. She knew what that meant on him. He puffed when he was angry or aroused, and this time it was obviously the latter.</p><p>“You don’t have to wait for me to do that, you know,” Bobbi said. She didn’t want Hunter and Mack denying themselves a part of their relationship just because she couldn’t partake.</p><p>“We want to.” Mack’s wing around her shoulder tightened slightly. “You’re worth waiting for.”</p><p>Bobbi didn’t answer, just kept working on Hunter’s wings. She tossed a loose feather onto the pile of fluff Hunter had collected when he’d been preening her; the lilac of Hunter’s feather stood out against the drab brown of the down he’d picked out from her wings. Soon a pastel rainbow was developing around her; Hunter’s wings were worse off than she’d originally guessed. He must’ve been serious about the no-preening thing.</p><p>“I wish that we could do it now,” Bobbi admitted, “but I’m literally physically incapable.” If getting into the nest had been a challenge, Bobbi couldn’t imagine the logistics of trying to get the three of them into a bed, let alone in a position comfortable enough for sex. Not to mention that her doctors had taken her off of her birth control because of the risk of blood clots, which meant they’d need to find condoms or… or.</p><p>Now was not the time to bring up children. Now was not the time for her to have children. Her knee couldn’t even support her own weight, let alone any extra.</p><p>“If you want to, we can find a way,” Mack said. </p><p>“I’m very creative, you know,” Hunter added.</p><p>“Yeah.” A smile tugged at Bobbi’s mouth. “I know.”</p><p>When Hunter’s feathers had mostly been straightened, Bobbi felt for the gland at the base of his wing and pushed slightly. Hunter gasped in a sharp breath and Bobbi trilled soothingly. His oil glands must’ve gotten clogged, and trying to release the wing oil hadn’t been pleasant for him.</p><p>Once that brief discomfort was through, though, Hunter had dissolved under her hands. If being preened felt good, having oil combed through your feathers was ecstasy. Bobbi rustled her own feathers, trying not to think about how dry and brittle they were.</p><p>Later, Mack had said. Hopefully finishing preening also meant oiling her feathers properly, so she could have her old shine back.</p><p>Hunter’s wings came to life under the oil, the colors transforming into something even more vibrant and beautiful than before. Hunter’s unique scent, citrus tanged with gunmetal and musk, filled the air as his wing oil warmed under her fingers. Bobbi bit back a groan as the oil began to sink into her skin. No one had ever proved there was an aphrodisiac in wing oil, but she couldn’t imagine how it couldn’t be one when every time she preened one of her mates for longer than a few minutes she ended up wanting to crawl on top of them and have her way.</p><p>“Careful there,” Mack warned, his hands joining hers on Hunter’s wings. She had lost her focus and wasn’t paying attention to the drips of oil, almost ruining Hunter’s shirt in the process.</p><p>Bobbi turned, grabbing Mack’s face in her hands and pulling him in for a kiss. Her injured body groaned in all manner of ways at the sudden movement, but she didn’t regret it.</p><p>Mack blinked at her, shocked. “Well. I guess you weren’t kidding about wanting to do it now.”</p><p>“Oi!” Hunter said, rustling his feathers impatiently. “Are you done?”</p><p>Bobbi looked down at her oily hands, chuckling a little when she noticed she’d left shiny handprints on Mack’s cheeks.</p><p>“Not quite.” Bobbi plunged her hands back into Hunter’s feathers, relishing in the feel of them. When she’d gotten most of the oil off of her hands and onto the feathers where it belonged, she withdrew again.</p><p>“Maybe you can finish mine?” Bobbi asked Mack cautiously. “And we can see what happens after?”</p><p>Mack smiled down at her, and when Hunter turned back around, wings shining rainbow in the warm overhead light, he was smiling too.</p><p>“We can see what happens after,” he agreed.</p><p>Bobbi churred happily as the boys settled into position to begin working on her wings again. Hunter didn’t hesitate to touch her this time, and Mack was just as steadfast as he normally was. Hunter’s wings were beautiful and his scent was in the air, and soon hers would be too.</p><p>Maybe they’d even find their way to a bed - they’d have to wait and see.</p>
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